Encouraging the Acceleration of BPD Ecosystem Digitalization, Jalin Holds the BPD Forum: Synchronizing the National Financial System

Bogor, February 15, 2023- PT Jalin Pembayaran Nusantara ("Jalin") held an offline Jalin BPD Forum titled "Synchronizing the National Financial System" at the Royal Tulip Gunung Geulis Resort and Golf, Bogor on Tuesday and Wednesday, February 14-15, 2023. The event, organized in collaboration with PT Synxchro Digitaltransformasi Indonesia (“Synxchro”), is a manifestation of Jalin’s support in encouraging the acceleration of economic and financial digitalization in Indonesia, starting from regional banks.

Jalin's President Director, Ario Tejo Bayu Aji, explained that the first-ever Jalin BPD Forum was held to discuss strategic issues faced by regional banks in accelerating digitization transformation, especially through the development of Payment Open Application Programming Interface (API). “Through this opportunity, we encourage BPD to engage in cross-institutional collaboration to create convenience in implementing payment systems for the community, especially BPD customers,” said Ario on the same occasion.

The High Level Management of 16 Regional Development Banks (BPD) across Indonesia participated in a series of Casual Talks presented by panelists who consisted of various industry experts. In the forum, Thomas Wahyudi, SVP TBRS of Bank Mandiri, presented the topic of “Digital Payment Initiative to Support Regional Bank's Ecosystem”, followed by President Director of Jatelindo, Armanto Idham Hadju, who discussed opportunities for payment digitalization through the point of view of the transportation industry with the topic of “Digitalization in Transportation Ecosystem”. Also attending as a panelist was Tata Martadinata, Head of Digital Product & Technology of ASPI, who took on the topic of “SNAP for the Innovative and Synchronized Payment System Industry”. In addition, Chief Strategist of Veda Praxis, Satya Rinaldi, acted as discussion moderator.

The growing use of open banking provides many opportunities for financial actors such as banking and fintech institutions to explore infrastructure-sharing-based business models to achieve operating cost efficiency. In his speech about the synchronization of the payment system industry, Tata Martadinata highlighted Bank Indonesia (BI)’s National Open API Payment Standard (SNAP) initiative as the regulator's solution to the issue of industry players’ relatively limited knowledge in managing a good and sustainable API.

“SNAP ensures that there is a nationally-standardized communication language for the implementation of the payment Open API. The standardization is carried out to support the digital finance economy through the interlink between banks, including Regional Banks/BPD, and fintech to increase payment system efficiency. It is hoped that the introduction of SNAP through this event could increase the literacy of regional banks toward the Open API system so they would not be left behind by national major players, especially in their respective regions”, said Tata.

Similarly, Ario added that as more financial supporting services can be accessed using API, there is a need for a technological solution that can connect various services of industry actors within an easy-to-access and easy-to-use single platform. This financial need motivates Jalin to develop an open API Jalin solution that can connect financial ecosystems such as financial and banking institutions, e-commerce, corporations, insurance, fintech, and others, to non-financial ecosystems such as merchants, billers, and public services through the Open API mechanism, which will shorten the time needed for cross-services integration.

Previously, Jalin has developed a Payment Integrator service formulated according to SNAP’s standard. Ario explained that this constituted Jalin’s actual commitment as a Payment System Infrastructure Provider (PIP) to meeting governance practice as per the regulator’s standard, supporting industry needs, and contributing to the acceleration of inclusive national financial digitalization, including by supporting the BPD ecosystem as one of the main financial development agents in the regions.

“We need speed to be able to compete, speed in reading market potential, and speed in innovating and collaborating. Thus, it is hoped that Jalin BPD Forum can give a head start to regional banks in further understanding the development of the digital finance industry, finding inspiration for business opportunities, and also taking advantage of this momentum to establish a broader cross-institutional collaboration across the regions,” Ario concluded.